GroundWork: Cloud Monitoring for VARs and MSPs?
GroundWork Open Source, increasingly known simply as GroundWork, continues to work more closely with VARs, managed services providers (MSPs) and cloud service providers. But how exactly does GroundWork differentiate in a market filled with monitoring and management tools for channel partners? Simon Bennett, VP of sales and channels, shares some answers in this Talkin’ Cloud FastChat Video.
Founded roughly seven years ago, GroundWork has seen a dramatic landscape shift in the past year or two. The company has a longstanding following within the service provider market. But more recently, roughly half of GroundWork’s enterprise customers have been asking about cloud-centric monitoring for private and public clouds, Bennett notes.
On some fronts, GroundWork competes with traditional systems management platforms from CA Technologies, BMC, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. But over the past year or two, GroundWork has increasingly engaged MSPs that need remote monitoring tools.
Generally speaking, there are two ways channel partners can leverage GroundWork. First, MSPs can leverage GroundWork to monitor their own data centers or customers’ systems. Or, solutions providers can resell GroundWork to their customers.
So how is GroundWork performing as a business? That’s difficult to say since GroundWork is privately held. Headcount has been pretty steady at about 30 employees for about the past year or 18 months, Bennett estimates. Over that same period, RMM (remote monitoring and management) software providers like Kaseya have made significant staff hires. And some MSP tools providers have been acquired for lofty multiples. One example: CA Technologies acquired Nimsoft in 2010 for roughly ten times annual revenues.
Also of note: Former GroundWork VP of Marketing Tara Spalding — a well-known name within Silicon Valley circles — left GroundWork in mid-2010 to join a startup. Spalding continues to speak highly of GroundWork’s solutions and the GroundWork team, however.
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